


Sympathy for the Devil

by warmommy



Category: Fury (2014)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Corruption, Dark, F/M, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, demon!reader
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-06 08:14:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13407129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warmommy/pseuds/warmommy
Summary: The reader is a demon who has possessed the body of Fury's a-driver. As she walks the fields, taking in the scent of blood and rot, she glimpses the brightest and most beautiful soul ever possessed by a human being. He's singing Old Rugged Cross.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can find this and a lot more at my tumblr, warmommy.tumblr.com!

Earth, blood, blood,  _blood_. You closed your eyes and breathed it all in, deep, deep as you could, then you looked around. Armoured vehicles, filthy men, men screaming in tents overrun with bodies. The sweet rot of gangrenous limbs filled the air all around the tent, and men and women alike with red crosses on their uniforms rushed in and out, in and out. Just as frequent were the Reapers, quick, flitting, final.

A lesser demon would have snarled over the cold, but you were warm. Thermogenesis. Smiling, hands in your pockets, you wondered how many of the humans around you could even spell that word, let alone understand its meaning. So much suffering. So much pain and fear. You breathed it in like the scent of daisies and began to walk at a leisurely pace. Looking at the faces, you knew the names of the ones that she did. Hopper. McDaniel. Gorvin. Derek. Chalmers. Vaught.

 _Wardaddy_. Privately, you smirked, watching him from just far enough. The loud bitch inside was at full-tilt now, and you could see flashes of her first meeting him, so many times since, how he filled her heart and her thoughts and her pleasure centered around him. He wasn’t so much to look at, you thought, but flickers, visions of bravery, of strong words, of  _presence_ , gave you some idea.

“Mermaid,” he called, his hands framed around his mouth to amplify the sound. When you looked his way, he waved you over. “C'mon. Time to go.”

“Where to, boss?” You couldn’t help but saunter, wondering what his reaction would be.  _Did he want you back?_ you asked her. As you grew closer, you could make out scars on his face. You smirked again. Oh no, he did not.  _He sees you as a baby,_  you told her now.  _Just another baby for him to keep alive while his spirit slowly fades. He’ll be dead before he even dies._

You followed after Wardaddy, hearing the echoes of her anguish as they bounced around inside. It made you warmer. Your boots clunked into thicker mud and you sneered down at the ground.

When you glanced up again, turning a corner with the Wardaddy, you glimpsed the brightest light you had ever seen.

“Oh, that old rugged Cross so despised by the world has a wondrous attraction for me, for the dear Lamb of God, left his Glory above to bear it to dark Calvary…”

 _Oh_ , how sweet it would be, when you bit into his lips and ruined him.


	2. Chapter 2

You could hear the Great Yawn on the wind. You closed your eyes, arched your back, both arms up in the air, fingertips tracing the golden sound. The ripples touched you behind your eyelids and moved down your body, forcing a giggle through your throat.

“What the hell is she doing?” Gordo asked.

Humans couldn’t hear it, could not feel the great thrum. They could not draw the air through their teeth and taste the collective end. Up ahead, there was suffering. The humans were showing each other fire and hate and cruelty.

It was a sonic boom of souls, pulled within, without, into the void. It was the closing of light, forever.

“Mermaid,” Boyd’s hand came to the centre of your shoulder blades; you rolled your neck in his direction. “C'mon, you gotta calm down. We’re leading this platoon. They can’t be thinkin’ there’s something wrong with you, you’re the only woman. They’ll start questioning Don and they won’t want to welcome more women to fight alongside ‘em. C'mon. You’re a-driver, we need you on the gun.”

Within, she cried, she cried and cried for you not to hurt him. Fair enough. She had been awake inside you long enough to see you kill the other boy.  _Don’t do this to me, don’t do this to him, please_.

When you turned and looked up at him, you flashed him a grin and a wink. “The air is cleaner. I feel like I haven’t breathed fresh air in weeks. I’ll take it down a notch if you tell me a story.”

“Mkay.” He leaned down a bit closer, his chin resting in the crook of his elbow. “What do you want to hear?”

Still seated on the tank’s exterior, not your seat itself, you draped an arm casually over him, not around, and shrugged, but oh, he was beautiful. Not the meat stuck to bones, but the pure, bright light that simply  _poured_  out of the man. The scent of a soul so untainted was a bare canvas stretched upon a frame. Artists used to be fun. You’d whispered in the ears of drunk and impassioned men, your bodies splattered and smudged with watercolors and oils. Some of those paintings hung in halls that humans liked to visit. Painting was not Boyd’s art.

His was an art of being. His was an art of piety and sanctitude that, here, in  _your_  theatre, the backdrop and driving pain of war, was unknown. His soul was so untethered by secrets and sin that you could have believed he was an angel, wings spanning tens of feet behind his back, were it not for the plainness of him.

You made your request and he did speak, but you weren’t interested in what he was  _saying_. His mind was working at something, an equation of sorts, but not mathematical. He wanted to balance how he wanted this new spirit in you against the person he once knew you to be.

Again, the Great Yawn sucked the sparks inside the dark.

* * *

“I’ll tell you the story I really want to hear.”

Boyd nearly dropped the piece on his arm. He looked up at you, cursing softly. “What are you talking about?”

You smiled sheepishly and folded your arms behind your back. “I couldn’t ask you, before, where they could hear. I’m sorry I startled you, I didn’t mean to. I thought you heard me.”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s fine.” A curl of affection, a shiny ribbon decorating his words, unseen. “What’s the matter, Mermaid?”

You took a deep breath and let your eyes grow wide, innocent, searching. “What about your grandaddy’s parish made you want to be a preacher?”

He stared at you blankly for a second. “You actually want to know?”

You pushed blood toward your cheeks and looked toward the toes of your boots with a shy smile. “Yeah, sure I do. I asked, didn’t I?”

“I grew up in that place. It wasn’t my home, but it was still my home, understand?” He looked five years younger all at once. “I remember running through those pews. Hiding my army men in them. Looking inside all the hymn books to see which one my cousin put a coded message in. I remember Bible camp. Things like that.”

“Yes, I do understand. He wasn’t supposed to, but Daddy always had me with him at the Naval depot, in Hawaii.” You swiped a lock of hair behind your ear. You froze and waited for his hands to come to you.

“Hey.” Boyd sifted careful fingers through your hair. “You don’t have to talk about him. You don’t have to talk about Pearl.”

Inside, the girl  _howled_.

 _He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead_ , you reminded her.  _Died thinking about you, how he could make it out of that hunk of metal and see his sweet Mary one more time. How lovely. What will you be thinking of when I kill you, little girl?_

You leaned just ever slightly into the contact and swallowed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make things depressing. I should go.”

But he didn’t let you. Boyd settled heavy and comforting arms around your middle with his lips against your forehead. One of his hands came up to cradle the back of your head and you could  _breathe in_  his light, standing so close, his skin on yours. “You didn’t make anything bad. You were a good daughter. He’d be proud to see where you’re at today.”

“I don’t know,” you whispered, pitching up the sadness. “There’ll always be better than me, and he never wanted me to act like a boy.”

“'Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, 'Here am I. Send me!’”

You backed away from Boyd as though electricity arched between you, but it didn’t. It wasn’t the verse. The words were nothing more than something scribbled onto pages by the hands of men no different–no, but they were  _lesser_ –than Boyd. He was looking at you exactly the way you wanted, confused, a little worried, just the slightest bit of guilt. Flustered. His hands flexed for missing you against them.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to…Well, I shouldn’t have.”

You walked away quickly, your back to his, but knew that he was watching every sidle of your step. He watched you flee straight to Wardaddy. Sitting by his side, you curled toward him, and you could feel the fluctuation in light coming from Boyd.

Again, she  _howled_.

Just another step in setting the table for the feast.


	3. Chapter 3

The hardest part about being injured in front of humans was pretending that there was an actual injury. The bullet had gone in, and you felt it, but no pain. The wound did not even bleed until you forced it to. You covered it with your hand, pulled it back, and gazed as if bewildered at the slick red on your fingers. There was so much activity buzzing around you now, strong hands pulling you, stronger arms picking you up from the ground. Don's arms. Beneath his breath, he whispered constantly, " _No no no no no no no no no no_."

"We need the medic!" Grady shouted, lungs like a great bull. "Rusiniak,  _get your fuckin’ ass over here_! We got a woman down!"

It was an easy choice that served so many purposes. The life inside of you, Mary Wainwright, the real Mermaid, faded like a dying candle until the glow was nothing more than an ember, and then gone. You'd been meaning to get rid of her. She'd outgrown her usefulness and now was simply an annoyance, a burden. The body was no longer hers, but  _yours_.

The second and most compelling reason was, had you not moved in front of him and pushed him away, the bullet would have pierced Boyd's gut, torn him to shreds, taken him from you.  _Nothing_  would ever take him from you.

You lay on the beetfield above mud and blood, forcing your own hemorrhage, and he was kneeling beside you.

"Mary, why? Why'd you do that, Mary? You didn't have to, you didn't have to," he whispered, his hands gripping onto one of yours. "You're okay. You're going to be okay. Rusiniak is here, remember him? Adam? He's here, Mermaid, he's going to help you."

They were all touching you, although the medic kept instructing them to leave. Gordo leaned over your head and stroked your hair. Boyd and Grady each had one of your hands. Don was holding your legs down, and it reminded you that you needed to act your part even more now.

You screamed, yowled, as the medic's instrument breached your body and searched for the bullet left inside by a German presumed dead. You tried to twist, but the crew kept you still.

"She can't move, not a bit," Rusiniak said. "Hold her down and do not let her worm around, or I'll end up severing a blood vessel and killing her dead."

"Get her a fuckin' painkiller! Morphine, something!" Grady shouted.

"God,  _please_ ," Boyd prayed. "Please, God, please."

Grady produced a syringe out of the medic's kit. "Just tell me what to do. She got shot! She's in pain!"

"Give it to me," Gordo said, reaching. "Hold her down, Coon. Hold her elbow flat on the ground."

"Don't give her too much," Don cautioned, a quaver to his voice.

It was a curious feeling, like drinking alcohol, only much stronger. Gordo was supposed to be the one you had bonded with the most, so you looked up at him. He looked afraid, devastated.

"You will be okay,  _mi sirenita_. Doc's workin' hard." He stroked your hair again, his ring moving smoothly against your scalp. " _Estoy aquí. Estoy aquí contigo, sirenita_."

"It's removed," Rusiniak said. "I need to get the bleeding to stop."

From there, it was fairly simple. The medic did his job and you matched his progress accordingly until he had stitched the small hole in your abdomen and slathered it with acrid iodine. You healed your own internal damages and were taken on a kit to the tank.

You couldn't wait more than two days before you began to walk around and move again. You insisted that they didn't take you anywhere, not back to the FOB or to an aid station, for sure. Don made sure that your bandages were changed himself. Gordo and Grady perked up and smiled every time you talked or did anything that proved to them both that you were still alive. When no one looked, Boyd would hold your hand so carefully in his own.

When a week had passed, he approached you, alone. "I have something to say."

"Then I'll give you my full attention." You stepped away from a menial task and leaned against the filthy tracks.

"You never liked it all that much whenever I got preachy," he said, those perfect, sad eyes on the ground between your boots. "But I know you're a miracle. You're my miracle."

It was rare that you didn't quite know how to respond, but this was one of those times. "What do you mean, Bible?"

"You saved my life," he said, looking up at you over his eyebrows. "It should've been me, he was aiming at me, but you saw and you saved me."

"That's not a real miracle, you know. It was just a decision."

Boyd shook his head, engulfing you in the sphere of his light. "Not  _just_. You're practically healed already. You had surgery out in the open and we didn't even think to give you painkillers until it was almost over. Been a long time since I was that scared, and you keep showing me that that fear isn't necessary. It's a miracle that saved you and me both."

You smiled at him. "You're welcome, Boyd."

He trudged a bit closer, sheepish. "I already know you won't like how I say this, but I have to use my own words. I don't know how to make them prettier for you. I don't know how to--I guess I just neglected this part of my life too much, now I'm paying for it."

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing." He shook his head. "I hope you won't be angry. I just wanted to say that I have, for a long time, I've wanted. . .to know you better. I never got the feeling that. . .well, there was Don, for a long time, I could tell you really admired Don and wanted to know  _him_  better. Is that. . .still the case?"

"No." You had to fight so hard to remain still, not to try and consume him already. He was laying himself at your feet and you wanted to pick it up and hold it to yourself so badly that you thirsted for it. Instead, you cleared your throat against your fist. "There was never anything there, just me being silly. I got over it. He's just. . .Don."

Boyd smiled softly down at his boots again, but managed to make himself look up. "Is it okay?"

"Can you tell me what you want in normal people terms?"

"A chance," he said at length. "I've known you a long time, but I want a chance at knowing different things about you."

"What things?"

"You don't make it easy, you know?" He laughed like music. "I was scared you would die right there before my eyes, and it was different than usual. I tell me that they'll be fine, because they're going to their Father. With you, I begged on my hands and knees not for you to go. It's the first time I ever asked God not to take one of His children home when I thought they were ready to go, because I wasn't ready for you to go."

It was already happening. He didn't even  _know_. He did not even realise what he was doing, what he had already done, into which darkness he blindly walked. He did not see his own hands holding up the light that came from within and offering it to you, like a pagan feast.

"If you were an angel," you said in a voice so quiet only he could have heard. "Would you fold your wings around me and keep me close to you?"

"Always," he said, no need for thought. "Seems to me, you're the real angel, though."

You smiled, holding out your hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can find this and a lot more at my tumblr, warmommy.tumblr.com!


End file.
